1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to land vehicle attachments in the form of dust, mud and splash guards. More specifically it relates to combined interlocking brackets and supports for the attachment of mud flaps to vehicles.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many land vehicles utilize flexible mud flaps mounted behind the wheels to protect other vehicles on the highway from dust, mud, water, gravel and other debris thrown rearwardly by the vehicle's wheels. In many instances, especially for trucks, such devices are required by state law to protect following vehicles from damage and from loss of vision which can occur due to materials thrown into the air behind the traveling vehicle. In some instances these mud flaps have been more or less permanently fixed to the frame. Other mud flap systems are designed or constructed so as to include easily removable or replaceable support rod systems for attachment to a bracket on the vehicle.
Because of their location and the manner in which they are utilized, such mud flap assemblies have commonly been subject to rapid destruction or deterioration. When they are located at the very rear of the vehicle, they are often subject to bending and breaking damage when the vehicle is backed into a parking or loading dock area. Additionally, on the road, due to the bouncing and pitching of the vehicle to which they are attached, mud flap support rods are subjected to continual oscillation which causes flexing at or near the vehicle attachment point. This constant flexing results in metal fatigue in the rods, which in turn causes them to break or to be easily subjected to breaking, often after only a short period of service. Even in replaceable systems, the cost of replacement rods and the labor involved is substantial.
This problem has been attacked in the prior art in several ways. In some instances, efforts have been made merely to provide an easily replaceable support system, without any concern for the cost of the broken rod assembly and the labor required to replace it. In other systems, various means to provide resiliency in the support rod itself, for example, by the use of a cantilevered structure in the support rod or by forming a spring-like structure of the support rod itself, or by providing resilient lateral support adjacent to the rod have been utilized. However, in all known commercial applications, the problem of premature breakage of support rods, due to both mechanical damage and road shock has resulted in short-lived support rod systems. Prior art of interest includes U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,388,884; 3,782,757; 3,934,901; and 4,007,944; the art cited therein, and the classes in which they are classified.
None of the known prior art structures approaches the rod breakage problem in replaceable support systems by providing a simple, composite support bracket for a support rod, which support bracket simultaneously provides a vertical socket to receive one leg of a simple, inexpensive L-shaped rod, a spaced extension to support and dampen oscillations in the horizontal leg of the rod, and rigid lateral nesting means surrounding the horizontal leg of the support rod. Such a bracket structure is essentially incorporated in the present invention, and by this means the invention is found to completely alleviate the deficiencies of the prior art, both in theory and in practice, by means of a simple, efficient and economical system.